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Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

news.nationalgeographic.com

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Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#81

Post by vl »

Zancarius wrote: post #33
bhnmmhmd wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although the Moon is much closer and "right there" for us, it's subject to numerous meteoric incidents, some of which are disastrous enough to wipe out any settlement we set up there. Moreover, only half of the Moon sees the light of the Sun. This fact alone reduces available surface for settlements to only half of the Moon. While the Moon could be a temporary backup plan, in the long-term, you're going to need to te…

> Moreover, only half of the Moon sees the light of the Sun. What do you mean by this? The moon is tidally locked to the Earth, but the entire surface sees sunlight over the course of ~a month with the exception of a handful of polar craters where small portions are perpetually in shadow.

Factually this is correct: only half of any planet in the solar system sees light of the Sun at any given moment. :)

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#82

Post by BinaryIdiot »

nolok wrote: post #13
kin wrote: post #2

Unrelated to the article, but WOW did anyone else see the giant full view height ad video at the top? I have ad blocker off for NatGeo. It's followed by a giant banner. I can't imagine how much crazier ads have been getting and most of us don't even notice 'cause we have ad blocker.

> I can't imagine how much crazier ads have been getting I would certainly argue the way this comment (and many others in a lot of threads about ads here or elsewhere) seems to imply that ads are at their worst ever. I mean either people forgot or are too young to remember, but in the 2000's alone ads had both their "pop up and sound and unclosable javascript spam" and their "flash everywhere turning your modern supe…

I remember those days. Back then I'd say 99.97% of those horrible ads you describe were on spam / bad websites. The normal, good sites that we went to every day had very, very tame ads. For the most part, as long as you visited reputable sites back then, the ads were not a big deal.

Today the reputable sites are an absolute mess with huge, bloated and completely unusable ads. So yes the ads back then on non-reputable sites were worse because of what the browser makers allowed websites to do but when you compare the reputable websites? There is no contest that today is far, far worse.

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#83

Post by aaronblohowiak »

drostie wrote: post #42
jgh wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Moreover, only half of the Moon sees the light of the Sun. I'm no astronomer but the moon is tidally locked to the earth and not the sun, which means that the moon should have sunrises/sunsets...

Yeah, it does. The real concern is that the moon-day is a full month long and there is no atmosphere transferring heat; any permanent structures on the surface will get very very cold during those two weeks in the dark. If we don't solve this with suitable solar-charged batteries we would need multiple outposts -- say 4 of them dotted around the Moon -- with colonists rotating through the cities to stay in the Sun. B…

Why not poles?

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#84

Post by kbenson »

athenot wrote: post #34
QAPereo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inasmuch as Mars with our current technology offers no back up for civilization, the same can certainly be said for the moon. I would argue over that the moon actually has some benefits Mars lacks, in addition to proximity it has a much lesser gravitational field and therefore a much lower delta V. Moon colony could realistically jumpstart space and vacuum industries beyond LEO, and frankly it would probably give us…

When the topic of Backup for Civilization comes up, instead of Wall-E, I tend to think of Elysium, i.e. the backup option is only for the wealthy, leaving the rest in a worse state. https://www.space.com/22287-elysium-space-station-science-na...

> the backup option is only for the wealthy, leaving the rest in a worse state.

Like most technology, it flows from the rich to the poor eventually as it becomes cheaper. The important part you omitted is that it leaves the rest in a worse relative state. Their absolute state is no worse, and likely better.

Arguing against a backup for civilization (or more appropriately, a backup for the species) because it will be used by the rich is like arguing against a cure for cancer because the rich will benefit before anyone else. In the end, a cure existing still drastically increases the chance the poor might be able to make use of it, from zero to some non-zero amount.

This is all also ignoring the fact that when it comes to species level propagation and survival, I would rather Hitler and his closest Nazi associates makes it off world sustainably in the event of a species level disaster than nobody. My commitment to making sure Humanity survives is much more than my commitment to ensuring we are a caring and accepting civilization. We can rediscover valuing life, but once we're gone, the chances we are coming back are essentially nil.

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#85

Post by mabbo »

athenot wrote: post #34
QAPereo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inasmuch as Mars with our current technology offers no back up for civilization, the same can certainly be said for the moon. I would argue over that the moon actually has some benefits Mars lacks, in addition to proximity it has a much lesser gravitational field and therefore a much lower delta V. Moon colony could realistically jumpstart space and vacuum industries beyond LEO, and frankly it would probably give us…

When the topic of Backup for Civilization comes up, instead of Wall-E, I tend to think of Elysium, i.e. the backup option is only for the wealthy, leaving the rest in a worse state. https://www.space.com/22287-elysium-space-station-science-na...

Elysium isn't about space stations, it's about wealthy enclaves. Those already exist, and our society is becoming more stratified every year. There's no need for the very rich to leave the planet for that.

Backing up the species is about keeping a strong diverse stock of human genetics and knowledge somewhere safe from whatever harm might befall the earth.

Under those terms, I for one do not care whether it's rich people or poor people. I doubt I'll be in the 0.00001% of the population who are part of it regardless.

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#86

Post by jtmarmon »

HugoDaniel wrote: post #38
lovelearning wrote: post #9

This was last month. Another analysis this month by a different organization reached the opposite conclusion. [1]: https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/analysis-rusty-lunar-rock-sugg...

Lets hope they don't find oil there...

That would be incredible though

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#87

Post by frandroid »

pc86 wrote: post #77
WalterBright wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also rotate the crew on the moon. Can send things to the moon you didn't anticipate. Can send replacement/repair parts. Can't do that for Mars.

Of course you can, it just takes a few orders of magnitude longer.

If the one specialist in your mission dies and it takes 8 years to send a new one, that's not called an effective replacement.

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#88

Post by ribosometronome »

kbenson wrote: post #84
athenot wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the topic of Backup for Civilization comes up, instead of Wall-E, I tend to think of Elysium, i.e. the backup option is only for the wealthy, leaving the rest in a worse state. https://www.space.com/22287-elysium-space-station-science-na...

> the backup option is only for the wealthy, leaving the rest in a worse state. Like most technology, it flows from the rich to the poor eventually as it becomes cheaper. The important part you omitted is that it leaves the rest in a worse relative state. Their absolute state is no worse, and likely better. Arguing against a backup for civilization (or more appropriately, a backup for the species) because it will be…

Why is humanity's survival important?

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#89

Post by quotha »

hutzlibu wrote: post #71
quotha wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know there is water on both right?

just like there is water in the most arid deserts on earth ... and still they are a jungle compared to moon and mars. So I think, boone-dry is a quite correct description ...

Adj. 1. bone dry - without a trace of moisture; as dry as a weathered bone

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#90

Post by mabbo »

Obi_Juan_Kenobi wrote: post #69
QAPereo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inasmuch as Mars with our current technology offers no back up for civilization, the same can certainly be said for the moon. I would argue over that the moon actually has some benefits Mars lacks, in addition to proximity it has a much lesser gravitational field and therefore a much lower delta V. Moon colony could realistically jumpstart space and vacuum industries beyond LEO, and frankly it would probably give us…

Mars has atmosphere for aerobraking and ISRU possibilities that the moon does not. In many ways, it is much more practical from a spaceflight standpoint. That's not to say that there aren't possibilities for both, but Mars is seen as the preferred choice for a variety of sound reasons.

Okay, I'm basing this mostly on playing Kerbal Space Program, but hear me out here...

I believe the extra delta-V you need to get to Mars is less than the delta-V you need to slow down to land on the Moon.

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